PAPILIO DARDANUS

PAPILIO DARDANUS(Papilio dardanus)

Phylum —arthropoda
Class —insecta
Order — lepidoptera
Family —papilionidae

Genus –papilio

Appearance

The caterpillars are dark green with large white spots.

The males are pale yellow with black margins, or brown on the underside, and they have long tails on their hind wings. Their wingspan can be 4 to 4.7 inches.

It can be harder to correctly identify the females because they are known for their mimicry. They take a variety of morphs, forming many subspecies and forms across this species as they mimic distasteful milkweed butterflies to avoid being eaten by predators. The females generally don’t have the same tails on their hind wings as the males, with the exception of the populations in Madagascar, Ethiopia, Somalia and Comoros where they look similar to males.

Habitat

The species is broadly distributed throughout Sub-Saharan Africa.

Behavior

It demonstrates daily activity.Butterflies are very careful: it is difficult to get closer to them than 5 meters.

Like other caterpillars of this family, the caterpillar of this butterfly has an osmetrium – a gland behind the head that extends in danger and looks like two long orange-red "horns".

Diet

Butterflies feed on nectar. Males often visit drying puddles in search of water with minerals.

Reproduction

For their reproduction you need a terrarium with a size of 50 x 50 x 70 cm. Females lay eggs one at a time on the leaves of the forage plant. The eggs are white with a reddish-brown ring, spherical, 1.5 mm in diameter. The incubation period is 9 days. The caterpillars feed on the leaves of lemon and other plants in the Rutaceae family.It is better to keep the caterpillars in containers with a mesh lid of 6-8 pieces. In the container, you need to place a forage plant.The caterpillar develops for 35-40 days.

The temperature is 23-25 ^oC at the humidity of60-70%. The pupa is green. The pupal stage lasts from 2 weeks to several months.

In captivity

The mesh cage with a size of 50 × 50 × 70 mm is suitable for keeping butterflies. Room temperature is necessary. Daylight time is 12 hours. You can feed the butterflies with honey syrup diluted with boiled water in a ratio of 1: 10.